The Philip DeFranco Show - PDS 4.24 Trump's Putin Problem is Humiliating & Getting Worse, Andrew Shulz Pete Buttigieg Controversy & More
Episode Date: April 24, 2025it’s coming off weak but we’ll see… Thanks to Tecovas for sponsoring this video! Visit https://tecovas.yt.link/AlIKEXm to get your new favorite pair of boots today! Use code “PHIL” for $20... OFF your first SeatGeek order & returning buyers use code “PDS” for $10 off AND your chance at weekly $500 prizes! https://seatgeek.onelink.me/RrnK/PHIL WEAR YOUR FEELINGS! https://BeautifulBastard.com Get 10% OFF with code "TARIFFS" Subscribe for New shows every Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, & Thursday @ 6pm ET/3pm PT & watch more here: https://youtu.be/_8Ubf8Yn5Sc?si=qfPvUvaTn2pH7Xzu&list=PLHcsGizlfLMWpSg7i0b9wnUyEZWI-25N3&index=1 – ✩ TODAY’S STORIES ✩ – 00:00 - Pete Buttigieg’s Flagrant Podcast Appearance Goes Viral 06:29 - Trump Tells Putin to “STOP” After Attack on Kyiv 08:32 - Sponsored by Tecovas 09:38 - Trump Admin. Texted Barnard Professors Asking if They’re Jewish 13:04 - Billy McFarland Says Fyre Fest Brand is for Sale After Fyre Fest 2 Is Cancelled 15:39 - Trump Signs Education Orders Targeting College Accreditors, Foreign Funding, DEI 20:06 - Stroke Survivor Speaks After 18 Years with Experimental Brain-Computer Implant 22:07 - Sponsored by Seatgeek 22:40 - Comment Commentary Flagrant Podcast with Pete Buttigieg: https://youtu.be/bgx7GvYSq64?si=2HHmD7oMWafq3ZHQ —————————— Produced by: Cory Ray Edited by: James Girardier, Maxwell Enright, Julie Goldberg, Christian Meeks, Matthew Henry Art Department: William Crespo Writing/Research: Philip DeFranco, Brian Espinoza, Lili Stenn, Maddie Crichton, Chris Tolve, Star Pralle, Jared Paolino ———————————— For more Philip DeFranco: Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-philip-defranco-show/id1278424954 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6ESemquRbz6f8XLVywdZ2V Twitter: https://x.com/PhillyD Instagram: https://instagram.com/PhillyDeFranco Newsletter: https://www.dailydip.co TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@philipdefranco?lang=en ———————————— #DeFranco #DonaldTrump #Flagrant ———————————— Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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Welcome back to the Philip DeFranco Show, your daily dive into the news.
I am Philip DeFranco, and we have a lot to talk about today, starting with this.
Is Pee-Boo toieg the Democrats' secret weapon?
Is he and or what he's doing moving the needle?
Because two of the many, many things
that Democrats have been hit on is,
one, y'all suck at fucking messaging,
and two, you're not seeking out areas
to have conversations that Republicans have
and they've kind of taken over.
But in the face of all that,
we are seeing a lot of headlines and conversation
around Buttigieg going on Andrew Schultz's Flagrant Podcast.
Right in there, one of the main takeaways
is you have a lot of people impressed by his ability
to talk to an audience that's seen as kind of
the other side of the aisle,
or at least more on the other side of the aisle.
But with Schultz, at least over, I'd say,
maybe the last year, being viewed more and more by others
is at the very least a kind of MAGA-friendly
comedian and host.
Now, a big thing is that the episode
was nearly three hours long,
so I don't have enough time to talk about
everything they talked about.
I'm gonna link to the video so you can watch it yourself.
But we should definitely talk about moments
that have been getting a lot of traction online,
including this part barely 10 minutes in
where Pete explained the necessity of government research.
The federal government could not have invented the iPhone.
I don't think any of us would want a phone
that was invented by the federal government.
But what makes the iPhone work? Well, among other things, the internet. The internet was like invented by the federal government. But what makes the iPhone work?
Well, among other things, the internet. The internet was literally invented by a federal
research project. And it would never have been possible to invent the internet with a private
company. Companies can do multi-billion dollar ideas, but a trillion dollar idea like inventing
the internet, that requires basic research. And that's the kind of thing the government's supposed to do, among many other things.
It requires basic research?
What does that mean?
Yeah, by basic research, I mean things that are so fundamental that you actually don't know for 50 or 100 years if they're going to have a return.
They might never work out.
Oh, yeah, you can't look at it as this thing that's going to be profitable.
But Pete, then noting that it's different from, say, research a pharmaceutical company does to create drugs with a specific intent to make money on those drugs.
It's not about the profit element to which Andrew added.
Public parks is another version of this and stuff like that.
It's like you can't privatize the public park.
Right, this is the whole idea of public goods.
Sure, sure, sure.
This is why we have governments, why we collect taxes.
God, we're turning into such libs already, dude. The war on academia, the cuts to cancer research, the cuts to science research, this kind of like general anti-science atmosphere that I think is emanating from the administration.
That costs us in ways that don't show up on a corporate profit and loss statement six months from now or a year from now.
That starts to really cost you over time. And if we're shorting that, or if corporations and extremely
wealthy people don't want to be paying into that through taxes, that is, I think, a classic example
of a kind of short-term gain that causes long-term pain. You know, even though there was obviously
joking involved, you had a lot of people noting that it seemed significant that Schultz said that
he was living out for a second. And so with that, you had people writing things like, this is why
these conversations matter. A lot of the hosts and audience would never hear a message like this one,
but when they do, it makes sense. And others claiming, and like clockwork hasn't been 24
hours yet. One of my friends who voted for Trump, who listens to the flagrant podcast all the time,
texted me saying that he was surprised, never heard of Pete, likes him. And if Dems nominated
him, he'd vote for Pete B in a heartbeat. And that was, you know, far from the only clip getting
attention, right? You had things like when talking about democratic messaging compared to Republican
messaging and where the left is failing to communicate policy ideas. Andrew had Pete
kind of pitch what he wants for the country. I want everyday life to be better. That's what
they want too. You get up in the morning. Yeah. But importantly, like all the controversies are
over what that's like. Like I want you to be able to get up in the morning and the first thing you
do is you commute to work. And by the
way, if you're on an EV, I want that to be affordable for you. Or if you're on public
transit, not to get back into the subway situation, but I want you to have good public transit to get
to where you're going. And then when you get to that job, I want you to be paid well. And if
you're about to have a kid, I want you to know that you're going to have parental leave when
you have that kid. And if you don't want to have a kid, I want you to have the right to choose
whatever kid, which means access to birth control and abortion
and those things that give you the freedom
to decide on that.
And if you already have a kid,
when you picked them up at school,
I want that school to be good,
not having its funding slashed
while they set fire to the Department of Education.
And that list just went on until they said-
Cut that, that's fine.
With that, you had people saying things like,
this, this, this, every word of this,
this is the way, this is how you talk to people.
And repositioning the left as the party of true and maximal freedom is possible if it's things like this, this, this, every word of this, this is the way, this is how you talk to people. And repositioning the left as the party of true
and maximal freedom is possible if it's framed like this.
With others saying this is evidence that Pete should run
and others saying that any Dem who can't go
on a three hour podcast where they get challenged
by the host shouldn't be the nominee in 2028.
Though this notably is not everyone thought
that Pete's choice to go on the podcast was smart with,
some saying, don't do this shit.
Pete shouldn't have sat with this bigoted asshole.
He doesn't care.
He returned to being a piece of shit immediately after.'"
Though with that, you saw a lot of pushback
with people arguing things like,
anybody mad about Pete Buttigieg
going on Andrew Schultz's podcast
is not serious about winning elections.
You have to meet people where they are,
not expect them to come to you.
The question you should be asking
is why your favorite Democrat
isn't going into the lion's den and defending our values.
Also with that, I think it's worth noting that once you go into the comments section of the
episode, you have tons of people very open to Pete and what he's saying, right? Especially
since this is coming as there's a much larger conversation happening about where the Democrats
go next. Because, you know, it's not a secret that the left ain't doing so hot right now. With the
seeing and hearing voices getting louder and louder saying, we need some ideas. We need to
change things. And so with that, some of the actions we've seen are leaders like AOC and Bernie Sanders
having their fighting oligarchy tour.
You know, we've seen them get massive crowds
across the nation and some seeing this
is especially huge for AOC because it kind of allows Sanders
to pass the torch to her as a progressive leader.
You then also have the likes of Tim Walz
launching a series of town halls and red districts
trying to meet people where they're at
and be a trusted figure doing the work
to hear people out in those areas.
And then just today, the DNC announcing an effort
to send more money to state democratic parties,
specifically focusing on red states.
Right under this new program,
every single state party will receive a baseline
of over $17,000 monthly,
but Republican controlled states will get an extra $5,000
through the DNC's red state fund.
What do you see in the New York Times explaining there?
Well, the cash infusion will not pay
for expensive television ad campaigns
"'or create robust democratic successes
"'in red states overnight.
"'It will help state parties hire more staff members,
"'open new field offices,
"'and invest in data and tech operations.'"
You know, ultimately for now,
we're gonna have to wait to see what sticks,
what moves the needle, what pays off.
And in the meantime, as we watch,
I'd love to know your thoughts
on kind of any of the aspects we talked about here,
but I'm especially interested in your thoughts
on Pete going on flagrant.
Personally, I think it's a great idea.
I think it was a smart thing for Bernie Sanders to go on Theo Vaughn.
Also, I'll say Pete is semi-unique in that he loves seemingly going into the lion's den.
Like, you know, he's no stranger to going on Fox News and talking and debating.
I think it's gonna be very interesting to see what the Dems do in general,
but also what a select few do.
People like Pete Buttigieg and AOC, it feels like they got the juice right now.
But then next up today in huge international news,
Russia just launched its deadliest attack
on the Ukrainian Capitol since last summer.
And Donald Trump, he seemingly pissed with them
issuing a rare rebuke against Vladimir Putin for once
instead of Zelensky.
And with that, according to the Ukrainian president,
Russia fired nearly 70 missiles, including ballistic ones,
as well as roughly 150 attack drones at targets across Ukraine,
injuring more than 80 people
and killing at least nine people in Kyiv alone.
With Zelensky also claiming that the Kremlin's latest attack
was quote, one of the most complex,
most daring attacks coming from Russia.
And this notably after Donald Trump said yesterday
that he believes that Russia is ready to reach an agreement
and further said he found it easier to deal with Putin
than Zelensky.
But now today you had Trump taking to social media to respond to the latest news, saying,
I'm not happy about the Russian strikes on Kiev. Not necessary and very bad timing. Vladimir,
stop. 5,000 soldiers a week are dying. Let's get the peace deal done. But this also notably is,
of course, we talked about yesterday, the Trump-backed peace deal that's on the table.
It's reportedly heavily in Putin's favor, with it, among other concessions, reportedly involving
the Kremlin getting nearly all of the territory that it's taken heavily in Putin's favor. With it among other concessions, reportedly involving the Kremlin getting nearly all
of the territory that it's taken as well,
as the US formally recognizing Crimea as Russian.
Which, very key thing, is something that Zelensky
has unequivocally ruled out, saying,
"'There is nothing to talk about.
"'This violates our constitution.
"'This is our territory, the territory
"'of the people of Ukraine.'"
With then, yesterday, because of that statement,
you had Trump suggesting that Zelensky
was the real obstacle to peace,
claiming, "'Infl claiming inflammatory statements like that,
that makes it so difficult to settle this war.
Though this is a key thing that Zelensky even pointed out,
Trump's own administration during his first term
firmly opposed any recognition of Crimea
as Russian territory.
With him also then pointing out at various times
that Ukraine actually accepted a US proposal
for a 30-day ceasefire in March while Putin refused.
But ultimately with neither side committing
to the other US proposal,
the fate of the whole peace process,
it's really up in the air,
especially as continued American involvement in general
is in question.
Because over the past week,
the Trump administration has repeatedly threatened
to walk away.
And yesterday we saw those planned peace talks in London
being downgraded because US officials decided
to not attend.
Which you know, in their defense,
there's a lot of other big stuff going on.
The switch to pre-orders happened last night.
You've got the NFL draft tonight. They had to get that Trump 2028 product page up. You know, there's a lot of other big stuff going on. The Switch 2 pre-orders happened last night. You've got the NFL draft tonight.
They had to get that Trump 2028 product page up.
You know, there's just a lot going on.
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But then, next up today,
we have the news that the Trump administration
texted the personal phones of Barnard professors
to ask them if they were Jewish,
which I'll say just a little free advice to Team Trump. I talked to a few Jewish folks. Turns out, kind of crazy, Jewish people
generally not huge on getting government correspondence asking them to identify
themselves. But yeah, according to The Intercept, which first reported the news, most staff at the
Columbia-affiliated women's college received text messages from the Equal Employment Opportunity
Commission. With those texts reportedly saying that the EEOC was reviewing the school's employment
practices and asking them to complete a voluntary survey about their employment. And then, according Employment Opportunity Commission. With those texts reportedly saying that the EEOC was reviewing the school's employment practices
and asking them to complete a voluntary survey
about their employment.
And then according to a screenshot of the survey
shared by the New York Times,
when respondents clicked the link,
they were asked to select from the following choices.
"'I am Jewish,'
"'I am Israeli,'
"'I have shared Jewish-Israeli ancestry,'
"'I practice Judaism,' and other."
With the time zone also reporting
that a later question asked staff
whether they had experienced antisemitism
or anti-Israel sentiments as well as quote,
"'Antisemitic or anti-Israeli protests,
"'gatherings, or demonstrations
"'that made you feel threatened, harassed,
"'or were otherwise disruptive to your working environment.'"
And after that text message went out,
Barnard's general counsel sent an email to faculty,
which was obtained by The Intercept,
informing them that the survey was part
of the EEOC's ongoing investigation
into alleged discrimination against Jewish employees,
with the email also stating that the EEOC
was legally entitled to obtain the contact information
of Barnard's employees to send out the option
to voluntarily participate in their investigation
and that Barnard had complied with the request.
But very notably here,
you also had the Columbia student newspaper reporting
that Columbia had warned faculty in an email
that it would be sending their personal contact information
to the federal government.
But this is Barnard faculty members
that they did not receive the same warning.
With for example, one Barnard professor
who reportedly spoke on the condition of anonymity
telling the intercept that they were not aware
of any professors at Columbia outside of Barnard
receiving the text.
Though they also said that several students
had received it as well.
And in her email, Barnard's general counsel
appeared to admit that administrators
had failed to inform faculty
that they were sharing their personal information
with the government. Instead, writing that in the future,
the school would provide advance notice
when it was required to hand over contact information
of employees unless they were legally prohibited
from doing so.
And then adding that the Trump administration
had not given the school advance notice
that it was sending the messages.
Right, but you know, with all this,
one of the things we've seen is many faculty members
expressing alarm about the tax,
and the fact that Barnard shared their personal information
with the government without notifying them.
With this, including Nara Milanić, a history professor
who said that it reminded her of Italy in the 1930s
when local governments put together lists of Jews and adding,
"'We've seen this movie before
"'and it ends with yellow stars.'"
But they're then also going on to argue
that the Trump administration appeared to be fishing
for reports of antisemitism, saying,
"'Evidently, they don't have sufficient people
"'to file lawsuits, so they have to go
"'shake the trees to find people?
You also had Debbie Boettcher, an associate professor
who's Jewish and received a text saying that as a Jew,
she found it a bit terrifying that the federal government
quote, wants to know who the Jews are
through some text message in Microsoft Office form.
With Boettcher also arguing that as a Jew,
she doesn't believe that the Trump administration
actually wants to combat antisemitism,
but just cracked down on pro-Palestine speech saying,
the administration of white nationalists has never been interested in antisemitism, an just cracked down on pro-Palestine speech saying, "'The administration of white nationalists
"'has never been interested in antisemitism,
"'an administration that is full of hate.
"'It is farcical to say that what this is actually doing
"'is protecting us from antisemitism,' and adding,
"'The government is weaponizing the EEOC
"'in service of their own hatred
"'and in service of their own desire
"'to destroy higher education.'"
And actually that last point was echoed
by other professors who told The Intercept
that they're concerned that the Trump administration
is using EEOC
as a weapon to attack faculty who've spoken out
against Israel on college campuses.
And given these concerns, you had Becker arguing
that it's especially alarming that Barnard
shared the personal information of its staff
with the government and adding,
"'They're providing us with absolutely no assurances
that they're protecting us and even just protecting
information about us that is private.'"
But then next up from that in a very different story,
you're never gonna believe this.
Billy McFarland is apparently not someone you can count on.
I know, up is down, black is white.
I was shaking and vomiting from the surprise
just minutes ago.
But in good news, if anyone out there has spare change
and likes making really risky decisions,
the Fyre Festival brand is up for sale now.
But with this coming as there's been a ton of attention
and controversy around Billy McFarland announcing Fyre Fest 2. Because as we talked about in with this coming as there's been a ton of attention and controversy around Billy McFarlane
announcing Fyre Fest 2.
Because as we talked about in the past,
it was set to take place at the end of May in Mexico,
but then the host city said the event wasn't happening
and then a second location fell through
and it led to this massive scramble.
With us seeing ABC News last week,
reporting that ticket holders had received messages saying
the fest was postponed and refunds would be issued.
And yesterday you had Billy putting up
a for sale sign writing,
"'The brand is bigger than any one person
and bigger than what I'm able to lead on my own.
It's a movement and it deserves a team with the scale,
experience and infrastructure to realize its potential.'"
And saying,
"'We have decided the best way to accomplish our goals
is to sell the Fyre Festival brand,
including its trademarks, IP, digital assets,
media reach and cultural capital to an operator
that can fully realize its vision.
Right, and explaining that his goal
in launching Fyre Festival 2 was finishing what I started
and making things right.
And with that, claiming that in his efforts
to put this together, he proved that Fyre
is one of the most powerful attention engines in the world.
And arguing that any interested entrepreneur
who buys this totally not cursed brand,
they have a strong path to become a leader
in entertainment and media and adding,
following the challenges we faced in Mexico,
we were approached by several Caribbean destinations
eager to host Fyre Festival 2.
We're confident we've found the ideal location
for the festival.
But adding, while I'm incredibly excited,
I can't risk a repeat of what happened in Playa del Carmen
where support quickly turned into public distancing
once media attention intensified.
For Fyre Festival 2 to succeed,
it's clear that I need to step back
and allow a new team to move forward.
And saying the next chapter of Fyre will be bigger,
better and built to last without me at the helm.
With a statement also directing interested buyers
to learn more at Fyre.mx,
where you can see Fyre's brand asset package,
which includes the brand name, social media account,
Caribbean festival location, documentary coverage and more.
And something I really liked
is that in the additional information section,
he touts that Fyre Festival has been the most talked about
US based music festival in the world since 2017.
Which yeah, I guess is technically true
in the same way that we would talk about
a plane full of adorable puppies crashing into an orphanage.
Because Fyre Fest was talked about
because it was one of the most memed disasters of all time.
It made Fyre Fest synonymous with disaster
and it landed Billy a prison sentence for fraud.
Like the most excitement we saw around Fyre Fest
was from Netflix and Hulu
because they had competing documentaries
about what a disaster it was.
But hey, for now, we'll have to wait to see
what's in store both for Billy McFarland
as well as the Fyre Fest brand.
But then from that next up,
Trump just dropped seven executive orders on education.
And we need to talk about the three biggest bombs he dropped.
And so first up, you've got an EO
that's aimed at the accrediting bodies
that set standards that colleges and universities must meet
to receive federal financial aid from students.
And notably, this is something that Trump talked about
during his presidential campaign,
with him describing the action against the accreditors
as the secret weapon to weed liberal influence
out of higher education,
and also claiming these organizations
had allowed US colleges to become, quote,
dominated by Marxist maniacs and lunatics.'"
So now with that, you have this executive order claiming
that accreditors have not only failed
in the responsibility to determine
which institutions provide a quality education,
but also that they have, quote,
"'abused their enormous authority.'"
And as far as what kind of abuse,
well, the order seems to be mostly aimed at DEI practices,
which notably some accreditors have already dropped
or stopped enforcing in the wake
of the broader Trump crackdown.
Even as the legality of that crackdown
is being challenged in court with a judge today,
for example, partly blocking earlier directives
that threatened to cut federal funding
for K to 12 schools with DEI programs.
Or with a judge saying that the administration
had not adequately defined DEI,
that it had overstepped its authority over local schools,
and that its policy threatened to restrict free speech
in the classroom. But in any case, right back to the executive order,
what we're seeing is that it specifically asked the secretary of education to hold
accreditors accountable for what it called unlawful discrimination and other violations
through denial, monitoring, suspension, or termination of accreditation recognition.
Though at the same time, you have the order calling for prioritizing intellectual diversity
among faculty. And then on top of that, it also aims to get new accreditors recognized
supposedly to encourage more competition.
Right in there saying the process needs to be updated
so it's efficient and not unduly burdensome.
But with all that and given Trump's previous comments,
we might expect to see even more action
being taken in this arena.
With the saying, for example, the Associated Press
noting that the order is the opening salvo
in what could be a lengthy battle
to overhaul the accrediting industry.
But that said, it brings us to executive order No. 2 we need to talk about, and that
calls for the Education Department and the Attorney General to step up enforcement of
Section 117 of the Higher Education Act, which notably requires colleges and universities to
disclose foreign gifts and contracts valued at $250,000 or more. With that order claiming that
action needed to be taken because higher education institutions in the U.S. have routinely violated
the law and stating that noncompliance will result in appropriate federal grant funds
not being provided. And case in point there, just last week you had the education department
demanding records from Harvard on foreign financial ties spanning the past decade,
with us seeing them accusing the school of filing incomplete and inaccurate disclosures.
And this of course coming, one, after the Trump administration paused over $2 billion in grant
money to the institution, and two, as this whole battle between the White House
and the country's oldest university is still playing out.
But that then brings us to the third executive order
that we're gonna talk about,
and that is aimed at K-12 education.
And it talks about getting back to, quote,
"'Common sense school discipline policies."
Right in there, a bludgeoning that discriminatory
and unlawful equity ideology has posed a risk
to children's safety and wellbeing in the classroom.
And as far as what it's talking about there,
I mean, to start, a key point is that in many schools
around the country, black students have been more likely
to receive punishments that remove them from the classroom,
including suspensions, expulsions,
and transfers to other schools.
Right with this, you may have also heard
about the so-called school to prison pipeline,
which is basically the idea that not being in school
or facing other harsh punishment,
it increases the likelihood of ending up incarcerated.
And with that, we saw back in 2014,
Obama unveiling federal guidelines,
urging schools not to suspend, expel,
or refer students to law enforcement,
except as a last resort,
which we then saw Trump roll back during his first term.
But now what we're seeing
that he's taking it a step further,
including by calling for a review
of nonprofit organizations
that have pushed equity-based discipline policies
and making sure that they don't receive federal money.
And then finally, at least to give you
like a surface level understanding
of the other executive orders,
this one connected to what I was just saying,
where you have government agencies and departments
also being instructed to no longer rely
on the so-called disparate impact rule,
which simply put is the idea that policies
that appear neutral can still be challenged
if they disproportionately impact minorities
and other protected groups.
You then have another one that creates a federal task force
focused on giving America students training
on artificial intelligence as early as kindergarten.
Then another is purportedly about promoting excellence
and innovation at historically black colleges
and universities with many of the proposed initiatives
focusing on increasing private sector partnership
and participation.
And then the last one is about investing in education
and workforce development for high skilled trade jobs,
including by expanding apprenticeships.
Which is actually why I will say
that there may actually be some good stuff in there,
but also and concerning for many people,
a lot of it is clearly seeming to be about trying
to exert control over education at every single level.
And actually on that note, already this week,
more than 150 university presidents in the US
have signed a statement condemning
the Trump administration's quote,
"'Unprecedented government overreach
"'and political interference in higher education.'"
But for now, we're gonna have to wait to see
where all of this leads.
But then switching gears from that
to a very different kind of news,
a new brain implant gave this woman her voice back
after losing it to a stroke.
Right, so this is Ann Johnson.
And when she was 30 years old in 2005,
she had a stroke that left her paralyzed
and unable to speak.
But then nearly two decades later at 47,
she consented to doctors putting an experimental implant
in her brain that connects to a computer
called a brain computer interface or BCI.
Right, and this implant, it was put into her motor cortex
and it tracks her brain waves when she thinks of words
that she wants to say.
And according to a recently published study,
this implant, quote,
"'converts her intent to speak into fluent sentences.'"
And how we got to now, it's been a long road.
The study saying that a team of researchers in California
recorded Anne's brain waves while she silently spoke
sentences in her head.
And one of the studies coauthors saying,
this gave us a mapping between the chunked windows
of neural activity that she generates
and the target sentence that she's trying to say
without her needing to vocalize at any point.
And then using her voice from before her stroke,
scientists built a synthesizer.
So when she spoke, it sounded like her.
Notably, this is not the first time
that we've seen people be able to speak again
thanks to a brain computer interface.
But the big difference between the BCI and previous iterations is the use of artificial
intelligence. Whereas older systems had to decode full sentences at a time, this new one can
continuously identify words from brain activity and translate them into speech within roughly
three seconds. And with that, you had one of the study's authors saying that this new BCI
works similar to something like Siri or Alexa. With them explaining, using a similar type of
algorithm,
we found that we could decode neural data
and for the first time,
enable near-synchronous voice stream,
saying the result is more naturalistic,
fluent speech synthesis and adding,
it's not waiting for a sentence to finish,
it's processing it on the fly.
Now, well, of course we should celebrate,
we also gotta keep things in check
because while obviously this is a notable advancement,
there's still a long way to go
in order for this to sound like normal human speech.
And as the Smithsonian Magazine points out, this new BCI can produce between 47 and 90
words per minute, and humans usually speak somewhere around 160 words per minute, or if
you're me, 5,000. But as one of the study's co-authors pointed out, this, it's just the
beginning, saying, this is where we are right now, but you can imagine with more sensors,
with more precision, and with enhanced signal processing, those things are only going to change and get better.
But then, finally today,
let's talk about y'all's comments on yesterday's show
and some comment commentary,
and give out a congratulations.
Starting with a congrats to Arthur C.,
SeatGeek's latest weekly winner
who just scored $500 in tickets,
and now he's deciding whether a Broadway show
or a comedy night's in his future.
And for the rest of y'all, that's right,
SeatGeek is still giving away $500 in tickets,
and you should definitely enter today if you haven't already. I mean, just imagine being
the next winner and snagging $500 towards seeing your favorite artist, sporting event, or play.
And y'all, there's over 70,000 events to choose from. And all you got to do is add code PDS to
your SeatGeek app profile for a chance at the weekly $500 prize, no purchase necessary.
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Public Mobile. different is calling. That said, diving into those comments,
unsurprisingly, there were a lot of comments about the autism registry. Because one of the things we talked about yesterday was RFK Jr., them talking about the autism registry as well
as food dyes. And with that, the most liked comment on yesterday's show read,
you'll never catch me, autism Gestapo.
I was only ever diagnosed by my bullies in elementary school.
You also had Saturnalia saying,
RFK Jr. taking the wrong lessons from Schindler's List.
With CorgiFan saying,
He's thinking, how can we do it faster?
And this is a number of y'all separately were talking about how a national registry of people who are different historically has always ended so well.
But then also, in addition to so many of those conversations and threads,
you had a lot of people chiming in
around Elon Musk.
And there, I really saw y'all focusing on the fact
that Elon Musk keeps saying, you know,
those that are opposing him, they're being paid to do so.
Which, you know, yesterday, my reaction to that was like,
come on, my guy.
Those are the only reasons you might get pushback, right?
Everyone who opposes you is apparently committing
high-scale fraud, being paid, or a bot.
It couldn't possibly be legitimate reactions to your actions.
And actually hitting on that,
y'all were saying things like,
"'Whoa, whoa, whoa!
"'You're telling me I've been hating Elon for free
"'when there was available funding for such things?'
"'But that, my friends, is the end of your Thursday evening,
"'Friday morning dive into the news.
"'And I'm gonna miss you for a minute,
"'but of course, don't worry.
"'I got a brand new show for you every Monday, Tuesday,
"'Wednesday, and Thursday at 6 p.m. Eastern, 3 p.m. Pacific.
"'Thank you for watching.
"'I love yo faces,
"'and I'll see you right back here on Monday.'"